Wonky walls and 250-year-old bricks: How will the Crooked House be rebuilt?
When it comes to rebuilding a pub from the ground up, Ben Martin and Tom Rees are the experts.
They own the Carlton Tavern – a London pub which was illegally torn down in 2015 by its previous owners who were then ordered to rebuild it “brick by brick”.
The Crooked House pub in Dudley faces a similar future after it was destroyed in a suspicious fire in August 2023. However, the project will be slightly more challenging as its wonky silhouette – a result of ground subsidence which caused one half of the building to sink – will need to be restored.
Rebuilding a pub from the rubble is a difficult task but it is one the owners of the Carlton Tavern in found immensely rewarding. Ben and Tom started their business, Homegrown , during lockdown and were on the hunt for their first project. When they heard about the Carlton Tavern’s destruction and the subsequent rebuild order, it felt like “fate”.
